While global capital spotlights high-end technology and upstream resources, and traditional retail exhausts every effort to chase single-digit growth, BUSYMING (01768), currently in its IPO process, has presented an exceptionally explosive report card. In just over two years, BUSYMING's store count has multiplied tenfold, approaching 20,000 stores, which translates to opening nearly 20 stores per day on average; from 2022 to 2024, the company's revenue and gross profit compound annual growth rates (CAGR) reached 203% and 206% respectively. Against the broader backdrop of consumer sector pressure, BUSYMING has not only avoided the widespread growth stagnation issues faced by its brick-and-mortar peers but has instead experienced counter-cyclical,近乎 acceleration-like rapid growth. What is the underlying logic behind this? And for Hong Kong stock market investors preparing to welcome this dazzling new consumer star, how should they assess BUSYMING's long-term investment value?
The source of this certainty lies in efficiency restructuring and a systemic moat. In recent years, due to the frequent emergence of various "black swan" and "gray rhino" events, the market's aversion to uncertainty has arguably reached a new high. Correspondingly, assets with high certainty have been highly sought after, from precious metals like gold to dividend-paying stocks such as utilities with long-term, stable payout mechanisms. A significant reason behind the sustained popularity of these assets is their high degree of certainty. In the view of Zhitong Finance, BUSYMING, soon to list in Hong Kong, is likely to be the next high-certainty target. BUSYMING's certainty does not stem from grand narratives but is deeply rooted in its business model and the profound, difficult-to-replicate "moat" built upon its highly efficient supply chain and digital capabilities.
The starting point of BUSYMING's business model is the combination of vertical product selection and a franchise model. On the surface, BUSYMING appears to be a company largely supported by franchisees; as of the end of September 2025, 99.9% of its stores were franchise outlets. However, the core competitiveness of BUSYMING does not entirely originate from its franchisees, or at least is not reliant on collecting franchise fees. A breakdown of BUSYMING's revenue structure reveals that revenue from merchandise sales constitutes 99.3% of total revenue, while other income, including franchise fees, accounts for only 0.7%. This characteristic of not depending on franchise fees for revenue generation means that BUSYMING's expansion is highly contingent upon the development of franchise stores and their actual operational performance. Excelling in these two aspects crucially hinges on maximizing value-for-money and supply chain efficiency.
In vertical product selection, BUSYMING's product team selects SKUs that are more popular with consumers, displaying them in massive quantities and iterating at a consistently high speed. While ensuring product quality, the average selling price of goods in its stores is about 25% lower than in offline supermarket channels. The author believes that BUSYMING's ability to reduce prices to this level is primarily得益于 its clever avoidance of high rents in core commercial districts through its site selection strategy, typically opting for locations near residential communities. Simultaneously, its flattened supply chain eliminates multiple layers of intermediaries found in traditional channels, with a direct procurement model from brands minimizing intermediate costs.
Since supply chain revenue is core to BUSYMING, supply chain efficiency is arguably its "decisive factor." As of the end of September 2025, BUSYMING operated 23 self-owned warehouses and utilized 25 third-party warehouses, with store locations controlled within 300 kilometers of the nearest warehouse, enabling general store delivery within 24 hours. While logistics operations are managed by third parties, the use of WMS and TMS systems allows for full-process monitoring of warehouse management and transportation services. The combination of self-operated and outsourced supply chain elements achieves a blend of high efficiency and low cost. In 2024, BUSYMING's inventory turnover days were 11.6 days, whereas even the most outstanding domestic and international supermarkets typically have inventory turnover days roughly double that figure. Particularly noteworthy is that this极致 high turnover is not achieved at the cost of heavy assets; on the contrary, BUSYMING's capability to control warehousing and logistics costs also ranks in the industry's top tier. Data shows that from 2022 to the first nine months of 2025, BUSYMING's overall warehousing and logistics costs were 1.5%, 1.6%, 1.7%, and 1.7% of total revenue, respectively.
When the certainty of a business model is validated, the capital market's focus naturally shifts to the sustainability of its growth and its long-term investment value. BUSYMING demonstrates a clear path to continuously increasing market share through efficiency transformation within a vast, fragmented trillion-yuan market. This provides a dual foundation for its future investment value: extremely high visibility regarding scale growth and profit elasticity that appears to have no immediate "ceiling."
Firstly, it can be asserted that BUSYMING's growth potential is far from its peak. China's leisure food retail market exceeds RMB 3.7 trillion, yet its structure is highly fragmented, with the top five players holding a combined market share of only about 6%. As a leading player, BUSYMING's market share is only approximately 1.5%. This indicates that the historic window for industry consolidation has just begun to open. Secondly, the pathway for optimizing BUSYMING's profitability is already clear. The market has previously, and somewhat hastily, labeled it a low-margin "poor business" due to its gross profit margin hovering around 7%-8%, with some even suggesting that operational risks in any single环节 could plunge the company into significant losses. However, it is necessary to clarify that this "low gross margin" is precisely the competitive barrier BUSYMING has actively chosen. Essentially, its ability to stand out in the fiercely competitive retail market relies primarily on its systemic "moat" – from scaled direct procurement for cost control, to data-driven product selection for precise demand matching, and standardized store operations ensuring efficient conversion. This comprehensive set of strategies has enabled BUSYMING to transform small snacks into a kind of "hard currency" in daily life.
Looking ahead, once scale advantages translate into absolute leadership in market share, BUSYMING's cost control capabilities are expected to strengthen further, at which point the optimization of its gross profit margin will follow naturally. Concurrently, the advancement of differentiated products could also become a significant lever for enhancing BUSYMING's profitability in the future. The potential for BUSYMING to "strengthen" its profitability is highly anticipated; in the first nine months of 2025, the company's gross profit margin had already increased by 2.5 percentage points year-on-year to 9.7%.
Finally, revisiting BUSYMING's current IPO: the company plans a global offering of 141.011 million H shares, with an offer price range of HKD 229.6 to HKD 236.6 per share. Considering that BUSYMING's performance continued its rapid growth trajectory in 2025, calculating its dynamic price-to-earnings ratio based on the mid-point of the offer price range yields approximately 20 times. As a rare "potential stock" in the consumer sector that combines extremely high growth visibility with elasticity, BUSYMING clearly warrants an appropriate valuation premium. This also explains why BUSYMING has managed to attract prominent institutions like Tencent, Temasek, BlackRock, and Fidelity to act as cornerstone investors, making its post-listing performance highly anticipated.
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